Down Corridors
by naturalbliss
Summary: "Mommy, is your heart hurting?" Henry asked after flicking her bottom lip with one of his tiny fingers. "Right now? It does a bit. Why do you ask, sweetheart?" Henry sat up and held her right hand in between his small ones and gave it a kiss. He played with her fingers for a few seconds before answering, "Because mine does."


(Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time characters and all related to the show are not my property. None is made out for any kind of personal or for this site's profit.)

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**Down Corridors**

The ceiling was a lighter shade of grey. The only source of light in the room was spilling forth from the wall behind her; illuminating it, beautifully casting a halo of light around her head.

She laid still, listening to the even sound of her breathing. The occasional muted laughter and low murmurs infiltrated it's way in from the corridor, amongst other rooms. She could hear people chatting, somewhat cheerily, just outside the door.

She went to reach for the phone under her pillow with her left arm, but at the shot of pain running from her armpit to her arm and chest, she stopped (the IV connected to her hand didn't make things any easier). With a little fight and a bite on her bottom lip to suppress the groans, she stretched out her right arm and took the object in her hand.

She pushed the Home bottom of the smartphone trying to see what time was it, and as the screen light up, a pair of smiles as well as a goofy face greeted her.

Holding the phone now more securely in her hand, she let her thumb caress the faces on the lock screen wallpaper.

She remembered this day. It was exactly two weeks ago, the day after her last dose of chemo. She was feeling rather good and woke up feeling like going to the park and having a picnic with her family. She learned early in the treatment that waking up this way, feeling the energy still willing her to do something else rather than go from the couch to the bed, bed to couch, shower, and doctors appointments, was something not to take for granted. So she got everything ready with help of Henry's other mother and her wife, Emma, and an hour later, mothers and son were ready to go.

Emma and Regina had been married for 6 years, known each other for 8, and had Henry a year and half after their wedding. They were the epitome of what a happy family looked like. But after Regina learned she had breast cancer, knowing her options and remedies, she decided to cut off her left breast and the feeling that hard times were ahead increased with each passing day. She decided everything on her own and it wasn't until the night before the big surgery while laying in bed with Emma by her side, that she asked her wife what her thoughts were in all of this. Emma just replied with a sideway look and a smirk. "Your health comes before everything else. So what? You'll have just one breast, I'll shave my head. That way we can match in missing something of importance." Regina just laughed at that and rested her head on her shoulder. The next day, Emma appeared with a shaved head in the hospital room claiming she felt 'badass'.

Once they were situated in their car, Henry in his carry-on in the backseat, Emma on the driver's side, and she on the passenger, they drove to the park. Emma gave her that sideways smirk of hers, her way of telling Regina she was in control and that everything was going to be okay. And Regina trusted her with her life.

Regina kept her gaze to her window with a permanent smile on her lips while listening to her wife and their son singing 'Somebody That I Used to Know' at the top of their lungs. She looked at Emma, smiling at the light, blonde short curls on her head. She decided to do different hairstyles after the shaving 2 years ago and Regina could honestly say this is one of her favorites.

Regina kept staring at phone screen and laughed at Emma's monkey face. She remembered Henry laughing non-stop on her lap as he smiled up at Emma. She was wearing a big, white, beach pamela that Henry liked to call "the alien ship", to keep the sun from making direct contact with her face on top of all the layers of clothing she had on.

That was 2 weeks ago and probably the happiest day of her life. That was until the Sunday after that Friday that she felt the pain on her chest and she knew, right there she knew, it wasn't a good sign. Her doctor told her they had to keep an eye on her liver from the moment they found those tiny marks on it. They kept her under treatment and kept the metastasis under control, but she knew. She always knew she wasn't getting out of this. That's why she wasn't surprised when she got to the ER and, after being put in a private room, waiting until her doctor came in an hour later telling her what she knew was coming, "There are more."

So here she laid. With the light on the back wall and the phone in her hand, she finally looked at the hour - 6:58pm. If she was correct, and she was certain she was, Emma was about to come in exactly one minute.

And correct she was. She heard those footsteps and a "Hello, Ms. Mills" from one of the nurses before she came in with something in her arms she wasn't expecting. Henry was on Emma's arms asleep. She looked a bit down by this, but raising her eyes to meet Emma's she received a wink as to play along.

"I was going to bring you a gift, but it started snoring halfway here." They heard a giggle from the blonde's neck. Regina laid more comfortably on her pillow while saying in a raspy voice, "I wonder if we can do something about that." And just like that, Henry raised his head with a bright smile and rapidly tried to jump from his mother's arm to the bed whispering rather loudly, "Mommy!"

Regina patted the right side of her bed as Emma dropped him there to then sit on the chair on the right side of the bed. Emma sat there, rather content, and watched her two loves looking lovingly at each other. Regina, on the other hand, while smiling and running her good hand through Henry's head, felt the tears coming. She didn't like crying in front of anyone. Only time she let herself break down was the very first time she learned about her condition and the first time she looked in the mirror, naked, and all alone in her room after the surgery that took one of her breasts.

She nuzzled Henry's hair. The smell of JJ's Lavender shampoo, Nenuco, and her baby boy's natural smell was the best medicine at that very moment. Henry laid a hand in the middle of her chest, his tiny body lay half on top of his mommy and half on the bed. He closed his eyes and smelled her. "Mommy, you smell weird." Regina gasped and then chuckled while tickling him before responding, "Are you saying I smell bad?" The boy just opened his eyes and looked up to her.

She couldn't understand what was happening, but there were tears in his eyes. The only thing she regretted from all of this was that there was no stopping him seeing the process. She had shared with him moments not many would have allowed their kids to be part of, but after he appeared one morning in her and Emma's bed wearing his Batman shirt saying, "Today Chemo Man will go down!" she took him to see how everything worked. He seemed to understand the basics of it all.

"Mommy, is your heart hurting?" Henry asked after flicking her bottom lip with one of his tiny fingers.

"Right now? It does a bit. Why do you ask, sweetheart?" Henry sat up and held her right hand in between his small ones and gave her a kiss. He played with her fingers for a few seconds before answering, "Because mine does." And with that, a tear fell down one of his cheeks at the same time she heard Emma stand up and walk outside the room.

Emma knew something was wrong with the kid on their way to the hospital, but she couldn't have known. She knew Henry was very close to Regina and that he felt like he was a superhero, the guardian angel in his mommy's life. And she also knew that Henry was, in his own way, realizing that mommy might not come back home after this.

"What? Are you ok? Did you tell your momma?" Regina was oblivious. She had been in that bed for two weeks and she was only allowed to see her baby twice a week. She felt out of it and she didn't like it.

"No! You remember when Momma had to go in a big bird somewhere else and left us alone? I feel like that. I feel like you're leaving us and I don't want that, Mommy. Cause it hurts right here." Henry pointed a finger to the middle of his chest before he curled back down with his mom. He didn't cry hysterically or sob uncontrollably, he just laid there, letting the tears fall against the fabric of Regina's pj's.

Regina just looked at him without blinking. The tears came out heavily anyway and she couldn't do anything to stop them. She could hear a broken sob and a sniff from just outside her room. She called Emma back inside and when the blonde appeared, she told her to sit bak on the chair and get closer.

Offering her hand to Emma and dropping a kiss on top of Henry's head, she looked at Emma first, smiling at her and mouthing an 'I love you' before looking back at Henry, "Well, then I guess we should get that Batman shirt on and fight our last enemy. What do you say?"

Henry looked back up at her, the excitement more than clear in his eyes. He looked back at Emma and said, "We need to go shopping tomorrow." Emma looked at him with a confused smile, to which Henry just responded before laying back down with his other mother, "If we're taking over this new enemy, we need to buy a Batman shirt for Mommy and you."

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A/N: Want to give my thanks to my friend, Megan, for helping me edit and better this story. The title is from the song 'Wires' by Athlete.


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